Not Only Bananas, I'm Also Afraid of Orange Juice

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Only being able to eat with small spoons, filling my hunger with questionable products, counting grapes, denying the symptoms of under-eating... These are just some of the bizarre symptoms of my eating disorders. Today I'm going to write about some of them.

Important note: this piece of writing is mainly dedicated to people who have never had an eating disorder. If you suffer or are trying to recover, think twice before reading it, and definitely don't take it as an instruction on how to eat less.

ONLY BEING ABLE TO EAT WITH SMALL SPOONS

When I was at my lowest, I got into a weird habit that I'm still trying to change - at home I can only eat with small spoons or chopsticks because it makes me eat really slowly and mindfully, which means I feel fuller by eating less. I'm not even sure if I'm completely convinced that this is true, but when I eat out, I feel really uncomfortable using normal spoons or forks. After trying to recover for a few months now (I've had my ups and downs), I still automatically go for the less convinient utensils.

SATISFYING MY HUNGER WITH QUESTIONABLE PRODUCTS

"Questionable" here is not really "questionable" if it is part of a balanced diet. I vividly remember drinking effervescent tablets as a dessert after being convinced I was "addicted to sugar", and let's not forget chewing gum or eating sugar-free sweets to suppress hunger cues. The best part of my worst days was always drinking either the tablet or the diet soda - which, to be honest, I don't even like.

SLEEPING LONGER

At some point I had an epiphany: if I sleep longer, the day is shorter and I have to eat less: if I have breakfast at six, I'm sure to be hungry at eleven; if I get up at eleven, I can eat one less meal. Talk about life hacks...

PANIC AT THE SLIGHTEST 'MISTAKE'

Looking back, this is probably the funniest and most bizarre part of the eating disorder and the biggest motivator for recovery. One of my first fear foods - foods that I was convinced would make me fat - was definitely oil. At the time I was just starting to go vegan and taking some supplements (B12 and D3). You cannot imagine the anxiety I felt when I realised that the few drops of D3 supplement I was taking were oil-based. The same goes for the amino acids I take after training, because I couldn't find any information about the calories in them, and I still only drink half the recommended amount of isotonic powder after my runs because I don't want to drink too many of my calories. Another internal panic came when I realised that the soy milk I usually use contains 2.5 grams of sugar per 100 millilitres. It feels a little sinful to laugh at this, but as I said, it's so bizarre it's funny.

OBSESSION WITH PERFECTION

I see eating disorders as a form of perfectionism, although I was never a perfectionist myself, except when it came to food. My anorexia peaked when I was on the exchange and you can imagine I barely had a plate, let alone a food scale. As I tried to perfect the food information in the calorie counting app, I had to resort to bizarre ways of estimating the amount of food: counting tablespoons of oats, trying to guess whether the apple was 'medium' or 'small' in size, and counting grapes (one grape is about 3-4 kcal). I also developed many fear foods that I didn't allow myself to eat at all: the ones that still make me anxious are bananas, oils, sweets, alcohol, coconut milk, peanut butter and nuts in general, and I can't even remember the last time I had crisps. I'm working on challenging myself though.

DENYING THE SYMPTOMS OF MALNUTRITION

In April 2024, when things got completely out of hand and I was eating way too little, physical symptoms started to appear: my skin was breaking out in acne, I felt weak and cold all the time, I couldn't sleep, and I missed my third period in a row. I knew something was wrong, and at first I thought I was missing some kind of vitamin or iron, so I started taking more. When that didn't help, I started to panic: I was sure I was pregnant. That would explain the 'hormonal imbalance' I had diagnosed myself with. I took not one, not two, not three, but four pregnancy tests (each of which is 99.99% accurate) before I was convinced that an abortion was not necessary. It took me a few months of trying to recover before I realised that these were symptoms of malnutrition.

Well, at least I had a few good laughs while writing this.

-Dragoness

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